– First post in 3 months, yay!
– The reason for my silence: I recently moved to Canada, and the last couple of months have been hectic. Hopefully now that things have settled down somewhat, I’ll start writing here again.
– Many music releases lately. And So I Watch You From Afar’s new album is amazing, so is the new Explosions in the Sky, so is the new Mogwai. A trio of phenomenal instrumental rock bands. If you don’t know them, check’em out.
– Radiohead, however, released their worst album since Pablo Honey.
– Biggest musical disappointment: the new dredg album. They turned from art-rock of the highest quality into a bland and boring pop-rock band. I can’t believe how atrocious their new album is. I have decided it’s the last dredg anything I buy, until they start writing music again. And now I’m also stuck with a t-shirt that came in a bundle with their CD that I preordered.
– Fave 5 movies of 2011 so far: Source Code, Hanna, Paul, Insidious and Rango.
– Cannes begins tomorrow – such a great line-up this year. Can’t wait for the first reports.
– Got tickets for Seinfeld this August, front row 😉
– “Fringe” ended Season 3 with a bang. And what an amazing season it was.
– “Community” can’t seem to do any wrong. All their episodes feel so fresh and inventive.
– “The Strain”, by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, is one of the best novels I’ve ever read.

Wow, this really came out of nowhere. Radiohead announced TODAY that their highly anticipated new album will be released THIS SATURDAY. That’s just 5 days from now!

Called “The King of Limbs”, the album can be pre-ordered here. It comes as either a digital download, or a “newspaper album”, which means CD + vinyl + 625 pieces of artwork + “many” large sheets of artwork + digital download. That’s perfection, right there. And it’s the second time in a row Radiohead goes all crazy with originality, after letting fans pay what they want for “In Rainbows”. Thank God they became independent and don’t rely on studios releasing their stuff anymore.

I’m kicking off my yearly tops with the one for music. However, just like last year, I will avoid doing a proper Top Ten for music, mostly because I didn’t listen to so many albums worth recommending.

Album of the year

Deftones – “Diamond Eyes”

It was a much closer call than last year, because the runner-up is also quite amazing. However, Deftones’ new album beats Oceansize mostly thanks to its better production quality and lack of filler songs. “Diamond Eyes”, despite Chi Cheng’s absence, is brilliant from start to finish.

Runner-up:Oceansize – “Self Preserved While the Bodies Float Up”Another great album from one of my all-time favorite bands. However, sound quality seems a bit lower, compared to their last release “Frames”; also the songs are shorter and lack the immense epic complexity they used to have. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a small step back from perfection.

Honorable mentions:Stone Sour – “Audio Secrecy” – a couple of bad pop tracks keep this beast from being truly amazingThe National – “High Violet” – same old amazing sound. Indie rock cannot get any better.Korn – “Korn III” – Korn is back to their roots and back to their old-school sound.

Almost nothing is certain when it comes to future releases. However, 2011 promises new albums from: Radiohead, A Perfect Circle, Dredg, Glassjaw, Fightstar, Mogwai, The Mars Volta, Limp Bizkit, Thrice, Incubus, Evanescence, Cave In, Them Crooked Vultures, Foo Fighters, Staind, Seether, and many others. Should be a pretty good year for rock music – much better than the sub-par 2010, at least.

– System of a Down is back together! They just announced a European summer tour for 2011.

– I’ve been listening to a lot of post-rock recently, hence I found plenty of quality bands. My biggest recommendation: And So I Watch You From Afar. Brilliant stuff.

– Brussels, here I come! 2 more days until a well deserved vacation – that will include seeing Disturbed and Papa Roach live.

– One more episode until season 1 of The Walking Dead is over. And what a season it has been.

– After a shaky start (despite the brilliant first ep), Dexter seems to be back at full speed. I still can’t stand Julia Stiles, I find her completely inexpressive, but everything else is top notch. Loved this weekend’s episode.

– The Oscars just announced Anne Hathaway and James Franco will host the ceremony. Wouldn’t it be cool if Franco would give the best actor award to himself? By the way, I still stand by my pick: The Social Network for best movie.

October was so awesome and crazy, that not only I didn’t have time or mood to write anything, but also I failed miserably on my attempt to watch the 31 horror films I was planning to. Anyway – I’ll try and post more from now on, especially since winter movie season is just around the corner, with so many interesting new releases, just before the awards season.

Meanwhile, a couple of random thoughts:

– if you wanna bet on the Oscar winner right now, put your money on The Social Network.

– The Walking Dead is beyond awesome. Darabont’s zombie TV show kicked off in impressive fashion, set audience records, and is shaping up to be a huge phenomenon. Don’t miss it.

I’ve always liked Linkin Park, even when they weren’t at the very best, and even when they tried new non-rock things, simply because I always considered them talented, above most other genre bands, or because they always had a certain catchiness even to their worst songs.

Their new single The Catalyst, however, is so bad, it actually made me decide not to buy their new album – that I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. They’re going in a brand new direction, and again – I don’t blame them for trying new things, but this song reeks of desperation. It’s as if they’re ashamed of their past and they’re so desperately trying to steer away from everything that made them famous in the first place. I’m pretty sure this new direction will bring them legions of new fans, and I’m also sure they’re aware it will completely alienate most of their old fanbase, which is actually somewhat sad.

Maybe I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, maybe it’s just one song and the rest of the album will be better, but I seriously doubt that. You don’t release your first single in years with any other song than the most representative of what you’re trying to achieve. So, unless proven otherwise, Linkin Park is officially off my radar.

You can find the new video on youtube, let me know what you think. I find this song offensively silly and stupid, from the lyrics to the structure to the awful keyboards (the keyboard “solo” in the middle is particularly horrendous – it’s like what a 5 year old would play when discovering the instrument for the first time).

… and waddaya know, it actually sounds like the real Korn, not the sell-out electro rock bullshit they were for the last couple of years. The album is called Korn III – Remember Who You Are and the first video is below.